Pete Lee/Prime Video
The last time audiences were treated to the vibrant, absurdist, and anti-capitalist world-building of Boots Riley, it was his 2018 critically acclaimed satire Sorry to Bother You. That delightly outrageous (albeit flawed) film found LaKeith Stanfield using an uncanny “white voice” to climb the corporate ladder, encountering greedy overlords, and trying to escape Armie Hammer, before being turned into a horse.
Sorry to Bother You may have left you with an adrenaline kick—and maybe a desire to go on strike—but Riley ups the ante with his new Prime Video series, I’m a Virgo, premiering June 23.
Aside from the novelty of its whimsical and thoroughly weird plot, I’m a Virgo marks Riley’s first venture into the television space and actor Jharrel Jerome’s long-awaited return to the medium as a series regular, since his Emmy-winning role in Ava Duvernay’s Netflix miniseries, When They See Us. Both live up to the expectations that fans of their work have retained in the waiting period since their last projects. Jerome, especially, uncovers new layers to his abilities as an already impressive actor. While the 25-year-old has proven that he can break our hearts, both in When They See Us and his cinematic debut in Moonlight, he’s also capable of delivering the kind of awkward, nerdy comedy of a Michael Cera- or Jesse Eisenberg-type.